Lessons from Lugh
Jul. 17th, 2006 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saffronhareI wasn't at all prepared for yesterday's ritual, in the sense of having any awareness that I was supposed to *prepare* for it. My own damn fault, really, for not paying attention closely enough...though it took most of what I had simply to show up. Anyway. There was a point during which we were supposed to offer thanks to Lugh for whatever lessons or gifts we gained through his patronage over the last year.
I sat there for a while, stunned. First off, I wasn't prepared. But after that, I realized I'd done almost nothing with Lugh that year at all. And I couldn't think of a single way in which working with him had superceded other work I was already doing. And then it hit me: his tale was a teaching tale for me, but in the way of a cautionary tale rather than one after which I wanted to model my life.
A very clever person told me half a lifetime ago that it's just as valuable to learn from examples of what you don't want to be or do as it would be to find role models to imitate. That's sort of what happened for me with Lugh (no offense, brother). Without realizing it at the time, I shied away from the model of do more, learn more, accomplish more, seek to gain skills and multiple competencies...Yes, this is a vast oversimplification, but it's the way the myth looked to me from this point in my life.
In recent years, I've whipped myself into a frenzy, trying to be the perfect this or that for everybody. Imagine a comet, streaking across the sky, leaving little bits of itself all over the galaxy. That's how I felt. The patronage of Lugh felt like an urging to disintegrate even faster and more gloriously than before. I'm so grateful for the crystallization of this understanding.
So, while the new relationship with Aengus MacOg urges me toward new ways of being and thinking and doing that are based on joy and self and living in the moment, the lesson of Lugh continues to stand as a reminder of how easy it is for me to obsess and get tangled up in some very self-destructive patterns. Much like when I left West Point, some little voice in my soul whispered that I had already gone Far Enough down that road for now. For now, I don't want to do more. I want to feel more. For now, I don't want to give more and serve more. I want to rest and grow more. I'm only just now figuring out that I don't have to apologize for that, either.
That's what I'm thinkin' now, anyway.
I sat there for a while, stunned. First off, I wasn't prepared. But after that, I realized I'd done almost nothing with Lugh that year at all. And I couldn't think of a single way in which working with him had superceded other work I was already doing. And then it hit me: his tale was a teaching tale for me, but in the way of a cautionary tale rather than one after which I wanted to model my life.
A very clever person told me half a lifetime ago that it's just as valuable to learn from examples of what you don't want to be or do as it would be to find role models to imitate. That's sort of what happened for me with Lugh (no offense, brother). Without realizing it at the time, I shied away from the model of do more, learn more, accomplish more, seek to gain skills and multiple competencies...Yes, this is a vast oversimplification, but it's the way the myth looked to me from this point in my life.
In recent years, I've whipped myself into a frenzy, trying to be the perfect this or that for everybody. Imagine a comet, streaking across the sky, leaving little bits of itself all over the galaxy. That's how I felt. The patronage of Lugh felt like an urging to disintegrate even faster and more gloriously than before. I'm so grateful for the crystallization of this understanding.
So, while the new relationship with Aengus MacOg urges me toward new ways of being and thinking and doing that are based on joy and self and living in the moment, the lesson of Lugh continues to stand as a reminder of how easy it is for me to obsess and get tangled up in some very self-destructive patterns. Much like when I left West Point, some little voice in my soul whispered that I had already gone Far Enough down that road for now. For now, I don't want to do more. I want to feel more. For now, I don't want to give more and serve more. I want to rest and grow more. I'm only just now figuring out that I don't have to apologize for that, either.
That's what I'm thinkin' now, anyway.
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Date: 2006-07-17 03:31 pm (UTC)I'll be glad to see what you DON'T do in the near future...
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Date: 2006-07-17 04:21 pm (UTC)